OKLAHOMA CITY - The 2018 season has been a tough one for the Mid-America Christian University women's soccer team in part because the Evangels have struggled to find goals. On Tuesday afternoon, however, MACU's offense broke out of the doldrums in a big way thanks to the Evangels' active career leading scorer.

Senior Brittney Stephens notched her first hat trick of the season, and she pressured Southwestern Christian University (7-7-1, 1-5 SAC) into an own goal early in the match as well, as MACU (6-8, 2-5 SAC) took a 5-2 win over the Eagles at home to open the regular season's final week.

The Evangels got things going early in the first half when Stephens took the ball and got in behind SCU goalkeeper Jordyn Howle. Stephens tried to pass the ball toward the far side when an SCU defender stepped in and tried to clear it, but instead blasted the ball inside the near post for an own goal. The score remained 1-0 until the 22nd minute when SCU's Emily Anderson took a pass from Millie Templeman and scored the first of her two goals in the match to tie the game at 1-1.

The Evangels answered less than 10 minutes later with a goal from Liz Lozano on a beautiful pass from Alex White that led to a 1-on-1 opportunity, and those type of chances became common for the Evangels from there. Stephens scored just more than four minutes later on a 1-on-1 break where she dribbled in, beat Howle with a shoulder fake, and slotted home her first tally to give MACU a 3-1 lead which they carried into halftime.

Just over five minutes into the second half, Anderson struck again by heading in a corner kick from Mariah Cook to pull the Eagles within one at 3-2, but from there, Stephens took over. She tallied her second goal three and a half minutes later on a left footed shot that went inside the right post to restore the two goal margin, and in the 73rd minute, White sent Stephens in again and Stephens took the pass and rifled home the hat trick goal to cap the scoring in the Evangels' 5-2 win.

Lozano had a goal and an assist, and White had two helpers in the game for the Evangels. Jennifer Starwalt made five saves in the win, and Howle allowed five goals and stopped just two shots in the loss.

MACU will wrap up their 2018 regular season on Friday afternoon when they host Oklahoma City University (8-2-2, 4-1-1 SAC) for Senior Day. The match will kick off at 1 p.m.